would we better now or in 40s dealing with crisis

lets imagine we have a really big crisis, invasion, world wide economic collapse , famine would the present uk respond to it as well as world war 2 uk .

forget technology just think socially have we changed as a people , if we needed to would the grim determination still be there or would we crack apart.

 

I think we are screwed when it comes to dealing with a crisis. The reasons being:

Nobody seems to take responsibility for their own actions. The bringing up of children seems to be seen as the responsibility of schools/government.

In emergencies like the recent flooding people seemed to blame the local council for a lack of flood defences rather than question why they bought a house on the flood plane in the first place. Don't get me wrong I do feel for these people but its like they've been conditioned to simply expect help rather than help themselves.

In the 40's we could feed ourselves pretty much. Since then we have built on a lot of agricultural land. Very few people grow their own food (although that does seem to be changing). We import more than we produce.

We used to be self sufficient in our energy needs but now we rely on imports.

People are fat and unhealthy and lazy.

Yep, we are up shit creek when it comes to a crisis.

 

Yes I think we could cope better now.

I agree a little with skimpot but wonder how much that is media fabricated.
Thousands upon thousands of people coped with the latest flood - not bemoaning the council or others for the misfortune.
Helping friend/family/stranger alike.
I did see a few people complain but that was deffinitly the media attempting to draw comparisons to America.
Ofcourse you are going to find a few miserable bastards that blame the local council council for a lack of flood defences and the goverment for a slow response. That tragedy was once in a generation - it could not have been predicted and adequate defences were there for the usual flooding that occurs in those areas.

It seems we were not self sufficient in food during the 40s.
[granted only one study - i'm sure born out by others].
I appreciate the: ''Dig for Victory" campaign but even so this was in light of food rations.
Did we used to be self sufficient in our energy needs ? - would that have been sustainable with economic and technological growth ?.

People are obese and kids are lazy.

I think we would cope very well in a crisis.

 

Well, perhaps I have a low opinion of people in general. I only saw what I saw on bbc, so yes it is maintream and probably not representative. I do see a lot of people in everyday life though who seem to often think their problems are caused by other people or not sorted out by government when in fact they are problems arrived at through earlier decisions they made.


As for the food production issue. I wasn't saying we were self sufficient in food in the 40's but that we could pretty much feed ourslelves. It was a close call and it also took a 60 odd % increase in agricultural land to be made available.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/esg/work_htm/publications/cs/farmstats_web/History/WWII/WWII_stats.htm

I am doubtful that we could increase agricultural land by 60% today and we also have around 11 milion more people now than we did then.

Coupled with a deserve everything now culture I think it sets us up for a fall.

We may learn something useful from future events. I hope so, I also hope we cope well and therefore that you are right and I am wrong. Perhaps we'll see.

 

I saw the same people - the proles are deffinitly under the tutorial of the educated classes within the BBC.
Willingly falling for the accepted opinions force fed them by the idle manipulative BBC.
No they are not representative but that does not concern those within the media - why digress from the paradigm that ''Brown does not care about northerners'' like ''Bush does not care about black people'' - when you can fill 10 minutes of air time with drogs of the masses whinging about not being able to salvage there mock tudor tables from within there recently renovated two up and two down.

Absolutely.

Sorry I must have misunderstood you - no you did not say we were self sufficient as far as food production was concerned - my apologies.
Imho we have always had to rely on imports or always had competition from imports - take the ''Corn laws'' for e.g http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws

Why should we though - why should we contain ourselves with outdated protectionist ideals ?.

I doubt we will have to indure the struggles of a world war in our life time - but I think given the hurdles that of forseable - I think we will and can cope very well.
For all the sceptisism of the media and ourselves we triumph in adversity -we should be proud.

Well we shall see no doubt about that.

 

Well war might be old fashioned but it hasn't gone out of fashion. Just because we've not had a war for a long time doesn't mean we wont have one. It's like insurance, I mean you can still export and import the food just be happy knowing you can produce enough calories, well.....just in case.

Thats where you get me, you see I believe a world war in our lifetimes to be not just possible but probable.

 

Men back then had balls, I would like to see the "men" today that have long hair and shave their balls storming Normandie.

 

I'm sure you'd be happy to see long haired in any situation.... so long as they've got shaved balls.

 

We have had a war we have had a few. Just not a ''World war'' .
That imho is unlikely anytime soon. Would we need to be ''self sufficient'' if a world war occured. I reckon we would all be dead before we found that out.

Unless the USA / China / India the whole middle eastern block decide they are a bit pissed off with somebody else. Imho it is unlikely. No not the media bullshit that gets churned out - I mean a serious complete obliteration of the the fairly robust complex structures that keep us in peace. Gone are the days when that was feasable imho. Mmmm well I just hope i'm right *gulp*.

 

Yeah I was talking about world war. Anything else is just normal political activity IMHO.


I think about the melting glaciers that provide water to around 2 billion people in central and east Asia. Already due to population pressure serious limits are being reached and the glaciers are still there! When they are gone I cannot imagine the stress that this will put on the political systems of the world.

Oil production may have peaked giving us less ability to respond to crises in the future in any meaningful way, as well as economic problems that it will prompt.

Food security is an issue to the world now and will probably get worse.

I also look at where armies are stationed right now in the world, Middle East, Eastern Europe, South China Sea and heaven knows the places I've never heard of.

Because I worry about this I think our leaders need to be concentrating on continuing this long period of relative world peace. The love can come later.

Its a hard job, and nobody is doing it.

 

We would be worse off now.

People no longer know how to grow and cook food for a start.

 

'course they do.
Boiling spuds - boiling the life out of cabbage / carrots.
Spreading dripping onto a few slices of bread.
Making gravy that tastes like break fluid.
These ''skills'' never die out.

skimpot:

Steady on - the question was ''lets imagine we have a really big crisis, invasion, world wide economic collapse , famine would the present uk respond to it as well as world war 2 uk .''

If we were invaded - then I do not know how we would cope.
Apart from a few smaller isalnds - british soil has not been ''invaded'' in a very long time.
If the invaders observed the rules of war - then I imagine we would cope just as well.
If they bombed us from the skies - then our military would cope and the people would cope.
I'd hope they would shut down the TV media - like they did in WW2.
Do we really need 24/7 rolling news - dragging our spirits down.
Having shami chakrabarti blame our invasion on us - because of our ''foreign policy''.
There are far more outlets for the morale of the nation to be broken nowadays.
So even though I think we would cope - there would be far more pressures and influences for us to be demoralised.

Not going to happen - but yeah we would cope.
We can't compare now to the 1940's because that did not happen in the 1940's. So i guess we would cope as well as those would have back then.

Fundementaly I don't think we have become a weaker populace.

How other countries cope and how there people cope - is a more broader question for humanity.
I'd not wish to try and wonder how they would cope - or how we would cope in helping them.
I know the intolerance that occured in the 40's is echoed and amplified now.
So i'm sure right wing racist nationalistic people would decry us helping and ''bloody foreigners''.

It may or may not - that is one for the conspiracy nuts imho.

Your such a cynic i think plenty of people are ''doing it'' behind closed doors - away from public gaze etc etc etc.
Yeah ''relative world peace'' is a delicate balance - but countries work a lot better towards each other now imho.
Thanks in part to globalisation.

 

Ok, I suppose its going a little off topic, sorry.......but.

I don't get that though. The earth can't conspire, it is simply a matter of geology

Yes, partly due to globalisation, but global trade as it is relies heavily on cheap abundant liquid energy. An interruption or permanent decline in supply will put paid to the benefits of globalism.

I don't have faith that they are working behind the scenes on anything other than maintaining business as usual, and as you know I don't believe we will have business as usual throughout our lifetimes.

This is another reason I don't think we will cope well in a crisis. We were expecting war in the late 30's and the other world war had happened in peoples lifetimes. I don't think people will see this comming.

I'm good at growing and cooking food though, and it is an interest that is growing in popularity. Something to be hopeful about. At least for me.